Rating:  Summary: Great Book a total page turner Review: What can I say but those of u who say that the ending ruins the book are on crack and are missing the main point of the book. "Hannibal" is not a replica of "Silence" for it has no chance to surpass it in any way its too hard , so Mr. Harris takes a smart approach, he changes the books 'motive'. It is equally entertaining and a lot more sick and twistted, what it would be like in the mind of Hannibal the Cannibal.The ending is surreal and twisted just like it should be I know all u people want is a shoot out at the end but just as in "psycho" this anti-climatic ending serves the right purpose as only Harris and Hitchcock can do. Great Book, all of the cynycs either havent read it or are stupid. BUY HANNIBAL. It was well worth the wait.
Rating:  Summary: Great read, articulate, detailed, implausable ending Review: I waited, I looked, I preordered and I enjoyed reading it. Some very well-crafted passages and phrases - not his best, but hey... My only regret is that Harris takes sooooo long between books, he may just be finished.
Rating:  Summary: Trilogy ends (I hope) with a whimper. Review: Harris has gone off the deep end with this book. As others have said the ending is the worst I have EVER read in any book. If you like his previous books do NOT read this one and preserve your memories of the characters. Most of the book is exactly what you would expect in a sequel and seems a little simplistic at times. Then he writes a very non-normal ending but a worse ending then a formulaic one could ever be. Horrible! When winter rolls around this book will go straight into the fireplace.
Rating:  Summary: Finish the book, please. Review: Red Dragon had a beginning and an end. So did Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal has a beginning, a fine beginning, but it does not have an end. It screams for a sequel to allow the reader to return to tonic. But after paying for half a book, I sorta feel like I should get the sequel free. Mr. Harris, your book needs to be patched!
Rating:  Summary: Not nearly good enough to warrant the gruesome violence. Review: I was disappointed with Hannibal. The grisly nature of the book was borderline sickening, and the plot was not involved enough to warrant this extreme violence. I liked the development of the characters in The Silence of the Lambs, but in Hannibal they were bumped off before they could become interesting! The development of the Lecter/Starling relationship and the ending was unexpected and welcome, but at the risk of repeating myself, the modes of dispatch were unnecessarily shocking. Mr. Harris is, therefore, going to have a tough time translating Hannibal into a screenplay the caliber of "Lambs" without allowing it to degenerate into a B-rated horror flick.
Rating:  Summary: Brilliant-breaks the mold-Monsters-R-us Review: Finely crafted,deeply moving: with discomfort, some revulsion, longing and bittersweet.Another reader reviewer stated that they found it "unbearably moving:-so did I. This book is not to be categorized-it is a dark elegy,a gothic meditation in part, but Harris's brilliance takes us beyond category-it is common ( and defensively easy ) to label the "other" as Monster.."they" is us, much to our distress-Dr. Lecter ( it would be rude to call him Hannibal ) and even the thoroughly revolting Mason Verger reside in us and under certain cirsumstances, are born. This is the first book in many, many years that I started to reread the moment I finished it - I wanted to quickly build a new room in my memory palace to place this treasure.
Rating:  Summary: A rare exploration of evil. Review: With a deep, almost uncanny understanding of the human potential for evil, Thomas Harris takes the reader on a soul-searing journey. The plot takes many unexpected turns as the story unfolds and the characters evolve in realistic (if not unpredictable) ways. Much more than a sequel, "Hannibal" deserves recognition as a thought-provoking, deeply disturbing story about people we hope to never meet.
Rating:  Summary: You should offer a zero rating for this book. Review: This book is a bitter disppointment. The characters are shallow, repulsive and weak. The same can be said of the plot and its outlandish ending. While Mr. Harris' talent can not be disputed, nor his intelligence, I am left to wonder how he, such a brillant man and author, allowed this book to go to print. Bottom line: A tree was wasted.
Rating:  Summary: Where's Miggs when you need him? Review: Run, Jodie!!! Run, Sir Anthony!!! Nay, let not the casting director of "Hannibal" capture you!!! How sad. I loved Red Dragon. I loved Silence of the Lambs. Both were tight, suspenseful, chilling, thrill rides into the world of sociopathic serial killers. Both were difficult to put down, once I started to read. Both had me starting at sounds in the night. Both had me looking over my shoulder, making sure no monsters were sneaking up on me. Hannibal, on the other hand, had me looking at my watch to see if maybe something more interesting was happening somewhere. Anywhere! Mason Verger is a caricature of evil. Hannibal himself suddenly becomes the cannibal with a heart. Well, maybe not. Well, maybe he is. Well, maybe.... Who knows? Who cares? And Clarice -- why, she's just a woman, after all, to be molded by her man into something better. Or is it worse? Or is it just silly? I know why I pre-ordered this book; what I don't know is why I finished it....
Rating:  Summary: A little light cannibal fare Review: First off: I think Harris should be commended for taking such a chance with these characters. They are HIS, after all, not yours, and I see this in every form of entertainment: when a creator turns his/her work in a new and different direction, you end up with wildly divergent fan reaction...as witness the other 400-odd reviews printed here. As for my own opinion of the story, I felt it was flimsier than Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. Those books appealed to me more--they were deeper, somehow, psychologically. You really wondered what the hell Graham had gone through to catch Lecter--what it meant to have Lecter in your mind. In Hannibal, it seemed, that everything was spelled out. Maybe I missed something, but I don't think so. That, and the fact that so many passages in this book read more like script treatments or movie scenes, made me feel that this book serves more as a sequel to the movie than the previous novels. Thanks for listening. KK
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